dayoutlast is a record of my direct engagement with mostly contemporary art, mostly Los Angelean.

As this blog has evolved since its 2010 inception, so has my perspective. What I once perceived as central within the investigation was what was central, literally, within the photographic frame that I shared here. While still an important consideration, such thinking has also given way to more peripheral considerations, ones also accompanied occasionally by text (written manifestation of thought) and the oscillations between them. What's missing here are larger unknowns surrounding issues of presentation and representation; the amount of time and space it actually takes to accomplish such first-hand observations; and the quandaries between documentation and interpretation.

Despite my attempt to communicate here with image and text what is essential in some respect about the artwork, neither representation should ever be considered a substitution for the primary viewing experience. Of course, occasionally there are exceptions.

Most of the time, these posts are merely remnants---residual fragments---from my last day out.

Friday, February 5, 2016

Edmund de Waal "ten thousand things" @ Gagosian | Beverly Hills


a lecture on the weather, 2015
290 porcelain vessels in wood, aluminum, and glass vitrine
41 5/8 x 62 3/8 x 4 5/16







Lichtzwang, 2014
281 porcelain vessels in 2 wood, aluminum, and glass vitrines
108 x 106 3/8 x 5 1/2 inches





black milk,  2015
237 porcelain vessels in  a pair of wood, aluminum, and glass vitrines
108 x 16 3/8 x 5 1/2 inches




composition for three voices, 2015
45 porcelain vessels with painted and gilded lead blocks in 15
aluminum and plexiglas vitrines
14 15/16 x 209 7/16 x 3 15/16 inches

















a new ground, III, 2015
14 porcelain vessels and Cor-Ten steel blocks in 5 steel, Corian, and 
plexiglas vitrines
24 x 50 3/8 x 38 3/4 inches






two sounds, 2015


two sounds, I, 2015
5 porcelain vessels on Cor-Ten steel shelf
1 x 17 3/4 x 4 inches





a word, a name, a place, 2015
16 porcelain vessels and 14 plaster blocks in aluminum cabinet
35 7/16 x 43 5/16 x 7 7/8 inches




to speak to you, 2015
17 porcelain vessels and 10 Cor-Ten steel blocks in aluminum cabinet
35 7/16 x 43 5/16 x 7 7/8 inches







the ten thousand things,  for John Cage, 2015










#835, 2015
18 porcelain vessels in 2 steel and plexiglas vitrines
19 11/16 x 45 11/16 x 13 3/4 inches






three sounds, 2015
11 porcelain vessels on 2 Cor-Ten steel shelves
5 1/2 x 43 5/16 x 3 15/16 inches




a place made fast, 2014
160 porcelain vessels with gilding in wood, aluminum, and glass vitrine
90 9/16 x 118 1/8 x 4 5/16 inches




case study #2, 2015
14 porcelain vessels and 3 Cor-Ten steel blocks in steel and
plexiglas vitrine
19 11/16 x 43 5/16 x 3 15/16






bauspiel,  2014
17 porcelain vessels in 7 aluminum and plexiglas vitrines
on plexiglas plinth
22 1/16 x 39 3/8 x 17 11/16 inches


Objects on shelves. Vessels. Book shelves but not. Flattening with distance. Subtle color shift in otherwise monochromatic schemes. Pairs. Groupings. Sequences. Orders? Sculptural object or flat surface seems to be the dilemma. Ceramic. Steel. The materials of permanence (dominance?). Votive. Candle holders. Aromatics. Ash trays. Vases. Cylinder and geometric volume. Irrational and rational. Registration of time in rust, a natural process taken up by anyone who employs ferrous metals. Beauty in decay. Monolithic. Multi lithos? Surface treatment. Process and alchemy. Timeless. Reflective containment or open, absorptive and exposed. Seriality and difference. Accumulation. Precious and quiet. Orange edge. Revealing a thought process like Judd with a taste for the chance irregularity of Smithson. Anti-heroic ((Serra)). Composition and rhythm. Cage.

Place and Placement.
Modes of display.
Displacement.

Containers, contained inside of containers, Edmund de Waal's presentation of works at Gagosian was just about the nicest thing that I have ever seen in this space.  Elegant, quiet and calming in their subtleties formally despite referencing monumental works of history (Judd, Serra, and Hirst), the works in this show seemed to speak to rhythms sensed rather than measured despite musical measures taken.  Their matryoshka-like, fractal effect seemed manageable despite the infinitude of options proposed within the structures given.  Composed arrangements not only produced their own harmonies and reflected time individually and relationally, but they also situated within a greater whole of the show of the architecture. So, it was difficult not to read works through other works, though I didn't assume they were constellated for any thing other than happenstance moments between parts, which thereby reinforces the game they seem to play between moments and durations.  It was not site condition nor a whole installation, though it was nice to see that a work such as composition for three voices is to be taken as a whole rather than parsed in parts. For, I could easily see someone temped to sell it brick by brick.  That the work played with boundaries reinforces what was most important about work in terms permeable surface conditions, inside and out.

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